Bloc Party's Intimacy tour is the first time that Armstrong had incorporated BB7s into his rig - a move prompted by wanting a very bright, soft edged source with fabulously smooth colour mixing to produce the main over-stage washes.
On the first section of the tour he used four BB7s a side for front and side-stage washes, plus four on the floor behind each musician, for silhouetting and other style effects. The other nine BB7s were arranged on an inverted triangle on three back trusses - typically a main truss with two sub hangs - dependent on the venue and available space.
At Olympia, the triangle was expanded to four trusses - mid and back with two sub hangs from the upstage truss - accommodating 22 BB7s. This architecturally shaped the stage with a clean geometric twist, the petal like appearance of the BB7s juxtaposed against the straight horizontals of the trussing.
The rest of the rig remained exactly the same as per the tour - with 15 BB4s positioned on the floor in a straight run across the back of stage making a high-impact wall-of-light effect, plus another four in footlights positions across the front of stage, giving him the option of lighting entire songs just with LEDs.
The rig also contains Studio Beam moving lights - which rarely visibly move - Source Four profiles, 4-lites, strobes and four floor PARs.
Lighting equipment including all the BBs for the Olympia shows was supplied by Neg Earth, who also looked after the UK and European tours, with sound from Wigwam. For Olympia, IMAG projection was added, directed by Jon Shrimpton with kit supplied by XL Video.
(Jim Evans)
